Portable hand-held screw driving tools have been available from Senco Products, Inc. for several years. Some of the previous tools sold by Senco were used with screw lengths in the range of one inch to two inches. Many of these tools have been “top feed” tools, in which a flexible collated strip of screws was fed into the top portion of the tool toward the front or nose of the tool, where the individual screws are taken from the collated plastic strip and driven into a solid object.
The flexible collated screw strips can be difficult to manage, and at times it is difficult to prevent the screws from bunching or tangling during a driving sequence. For example, this tangling/bunching phenomena can occur when the collated screws have been fed into a slide body mechanism; once the driving mechanism has been actuated, the screws could have a tendency to cross over one another, perhaps creating a jam or a misfeed. This may occur whether the tool is being driven in a horizontal or a vertical plane (or at other angles).
In some of the earlier tools sold by Senco, the collated strip of screws may not tend to readily become bunched or tangled during drive sequences of the tool, perhaps because the screws were not very long. For example, two-inch screws have been used in some Senco tools, such as those sold under the Model Numbers DS200, DS200-D2, and DS200-D4. On the other hand, some earlier Senco tools used three-inch screws, such as Senco Model Numbers DS300 and DS300-D2.
In some of the earlier Senco top-feed screw driving tools, there was a fixed “top” guide rail that fed the collated strip of screws to the front (drive portion) of the tool. An example of this configuration is the Senco tool Model Number DS200-D4. In some of the other earlier Senco top-feed screw driving tools, there was a movable “top” guide rail that fed the collated strip of screws to the front (drive portion) of the tool. An example of this configuration is the Senco tool Model Number DS300-D2. However, the guide rail on the model DS300-D2 was spaced-apart from the top of the tool main body, and a rigid metal bracket is used to help support the guide rail and to help direct the collated strip of screws to the front end of the tool.
It would be an improvement to provide a top-feed portable hand-held screw driving tool that could be used with longer screws that were provided on a collated strip, but at the same time to provide a means for preventing the collated strip from becoming misaligned, by sagging or otherwise bunching or becoming tangled.